


as the world caves in

by frankenvenus



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, Implied Sexual Content, Kissing, Light Angst, Mentions of hyperventilation and dissociation, Not So Cute Meet-Cute, Oneshot, Sad Happy Ending, Strangers to Lovers, end of the world AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:33:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25346284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankenvenus/pseuds/frankenvenus
Summary: If she got to go out looking at Nicky’s perfect face, her thirty-three years of ups and downs, highs and lows, would’ve been completely worth it.Or a Doomsday AU centred around the Matt Maltese song
Relationships: (IMPLIED), Gigi Goode/Crystal Methyd, Nicky Doll/Jaida Essence Hall
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	as the world caves in

Jaida commuted to her small eight-floor office five times a week. She’d grab a matcha green tea from the small stall near her apartment at ten to eight each day before hopping on the number eleven bus into the bustling city.

The day was just like any other. Jaida had a single earplug in when she stepped on to the bus, playing Destiny’s Child like most other days. Everything was the same as it always was. The temperature was a humble twenty-two-degree celsius with a light breeze and a few dark clouds hovering among the blue that loomed threatening rainfall.

“Morning,” the bus driver grumbled whilst Jaida pressed her bus pass over the scanner. The one thing that changed every day was the bus driver. She had never had the same one twice. The one that very day happened to be blasting the radio condescendingly loud, but Jaida couldn’t complain.

She took her seat by the middle. The bus wasn’t too busy but she liked to be slightly distanced from the others. Her thighs rubbed against one another under her lilac dress-suit, stuck against the rubber seat. The heat caused a sweat beneath her clothes and she knew she’d have to peel herself off the chair upon exit. 

She spotted Crystal, one of the regulars, a few seats in front, feeding her two-year-old son fruit snacks from his pushchair. Every day either Crystal or her wife Gigi would take the bus with their son to drop him at daycare. The couple was never seen on the bus at the same time, but the way they would often gush about one another to Jaida or other surrounding passengers made her believe that they truly were in love.

When the bus came to its next stop, a woman walked on. Jaida had never seen her before - or at least she didn’t think she had. The thing was, the woman didn’t have a very forgettable face.

Plump red lips, a button nose, cinnamon eyes, golden-blonde hair held in delicate pin curls. She was ethereal.

She looked rich, thought Jaida, and she assumed she was correct after looking out the window at the surrounding neighbourhood. It seemed to be the last bit of suburbia before you hit the city.

The woman paid for her ticket with contactless payment, before strutting down the centre aisle and taking a seat beside Jaida, giving her a small, casual smile before pulling out her phone and mindlessly scrolling through her Twitter feed.

Jaida kept sneaking short glances at the woman, her eyes were particularly drawn to her nails that tapped away on her screen, or her lack thereof. It stayed like that for twenty-odd minutes, the blonde’s eyes fixated on whoever she was messaging. Jaida wondered if she was texting her spouse, before deciding to divert her eyes out the window in case she got caught snooping.

She thought it was so strange how she would likely never cross paths with this woman again. She sighed and watched as her breath steamed up the window. She fiddled with one of her braids, realising she had a slight itch in her scalp that she’d have to suppress in case of embarrassment in front of the beautiful lady beside her. 

The blonde’s eyes stayed staring down at her screen until the sound of something on the condescendingly loud radio from earlier shot her head up. Jaida felt the sharp motion and perked her ears up too.

 _”Officials at NASA confirm that their telescopes have picked up on a planetoid roughly the size of Europe that has appeared from nowhere and is headed straight to our planet. It’s set to hit between twelve am and twelve-thirty am eastern standard time. I’m sorry to say it, but-”_ the radio host began to sniffle, _“This is it, everyone. This is the end. We have just been noticed to evacuate. I wish you all a peaceful final day and I pray you will all make it home. Thank you.”_

Jaida felt as if her lungs had plummeted into her stomach and her throat had closed up. She felt dizzy, her heart had stopped, her hands were shaking and she was starting to see multi-coloured spots. Her only sense of awareness for her surroundings was the feeling of the woman beside her’s thighs pressed against her own. She was hyperventilating.

In her head, Jaida continuously told herself that this wasn’t real and that she was having a very vivid nightmare until the woman beside her turned to her and placed a hand over her thigh that was very much real.

“Are you okay?” the woman inquired - voice heavily accented. 

“Do I _look_ okay?” Jaida snapped, before sincerely apologising and blaming her angry outburst on her skittishness. “Do you think this is real?”

The woman sighed and nodded, “I’ve been expecting it.”

Jaida pursed her lips before glancing down at the woman’s hand still resting on her thigh. Boldly, she intertwined their fingers. She literally had _nothing_ to lose.

“Can we get off?” the dark-haired woman asked, still with a prominent tremor in her tone.

The blonde nodded and the two women hopped off the bus, still hand-in-hand. 

“Listen-.” the blonde began. 

“My name is Nicky and I have no family here. My mother and sister live in Paris, and there’s no way I’ll be able to get there before midnight. Do you think you could spend this final day with me if you don’t have anyone to go home to? I don’t want to go out alone, and I don’t have any friends in the city. I only moved here last month.”

Jaida thought about it. There was no way she’d be able to snag a flight to Milwaukee to say goodbye to her mom, dad, and brother in such little time. Nicky was one of the most gorgeous people she’d ever laid eyes on, and if she got to draw her final breath beside this woman, she’d be satisfied.

“I mean-.” Jaida inhaled. 

“-Why not?”

.

It was a forty-minute walk from the location they’d hopped off the bus to Nicky’s penthouse. Their hands stayed interlocked the whole time, but the blonde took the lead. 

Jaida was close to passing out multiple times, but Nicky kept throwing quick-fire questions at her to keep her aware.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

 _“Ça Alors!_ You look so young! I’m twenty-nine. Favourite colour?”

“Purple or pink.”

“Favourite food?”

“I don’t know. Shrimp?”

“Favourite band?”  
“Destiny’s Child. Can you relax now? I’m fine.”

“Okay-.” the blonde sighed and pulled Jaida into her building.

“-Push the elevator button for me, ma beauté.”

Jaida folded her arms and shook her head.

“This looks dodgy as fuck. I am not spending my final day trapped in a tin can. We can take the stairs.”

Nicky couldn’t argue, so they walked the five flights of stairs it took to finally reach Nicky’s penthouse, which was impressive, to say the least.

Two of the four walls were glass, looking out onto the rising sun and the New York high rises in front. The decor was a mixture of modern and vintage, and it all screamed _expensive._

“I feel like I should be paying you to breathe here,” Jaida chuckled, but Nicky shook her head. 

The darker-skinned woman kicked her heels off as her feet began to ache. Her back hurt slightly too as she slumped onto Nicky’s large velvet couch with every bit of disregard for etiquette. 

“All restaurants on UberEats are unavailable. That’s so fucking annoying,” Nicky groaned, copying Jaida’s movements.

“Chile, let these bitches say goodbye. Some people are lucky enough to have relations in their own state-.” the older woman tutted.

“-Now, where’s the booze?”

Nicky walked to what the dark-haired woman assumed was the kitchen, before returning with a large bottle of _Armand de Brignac Brut_ \- very expensive champagne - and two glasses. She poured Jaida a glass, but the older woman hesitated to take a sip.

“Let me text my high school friends goodbye before I get too drunk to think.”

_To: Heidi_  
_hiii bitch! i know u haven’t heard from me in a while but i decided to text u cause, if u have seen the news, this is the last chance we’ll ever have to talk. thank you for sticking by me in high school and being for me when no one else was. and girllll, thanks for being my first kiss when we were both experimenting. look where we both are now! you’re proudly bi and married and i’m… a raging single lesbo! chile... i wish we could’ve had a proper goodbye. i regret not attending the twelve-year reunion a couple of years ago. but whateva, we can’t go back in time. mwah, mwah, mwah. i love you girl._

_To: Widow_  
_hey girl! thanks for being my guardian angel growing up in our little town. without you, i would’ve never known what being gay even meant!!! you are the sister i never had. you taught me what tampons, scissoring, and all that jazz was, and for that you are an ICON. i luv you so much!! goodbye._

_To: Dahlia_  
_hey bitch, i know we had a few meh moments growing up, but u are still one of the coolest people i know, and u have the hottest damn shoe collection. u taught me to be unapologetic and feisty and if it wasn’t for ur constant bullying growing up, i’d probably still be a nerd! so thx angel. i love you. goodbye._

“Are you done?” Nicky asked rather rudely, her wrist aching from holding Jaida’s glass over her for five minutes.

“Yeah. Hold on-.” Jaida grabbed her phone and walked over to one of the penthouse’s open windows, tossing it out and watching it drop five stories down and onto the street.

“-Won’t be needing that any more.”

_”Oh.”_

Jaida slumped back on the couch, wanting to just close her eyes, sleep, and pray she wakes up the next day like the news meant nothing. Her eyes shot open at the sound of Nicky turning the TV on, but she shut them once again, still too shaken up to take in everything.

“Imagine if this was all a hoax-.” she began, eyes still shut.

“-And I just threw my eight hundred dollar phone out a stranger’s window for nothing.”

She heard the blonde shuffle around the room and suddenly felt a weight press against her side.

“Stranger?” Nicky pouted as the older woman opened a single eye suspiciously. “We aren’t strangers.”

“What are we then?”

“I don’t know-.” the blonde placed her hand over Jaida’s thigh.

“-Doomsday partners?”

 _Doomsday._ Jaida _hated_ that word. It was always a prominent word during one of her many existential crises as a child. She was a very panicky person, always expecting the worst. She needed six months of therapy after watching _The Truman Showsex?”_ Nicky responded, and Jaida nearly choked for another reason.

“I was thinking more like makeovers or something…”

“Right! Of course! Follow me!”

Jaida followed Nicky with a raised brow as the latter took her into her large bedroom, which was lit by dim red lights. She then followed her into a walk-in closet that was slightly on the smaller side, but enough space for two racks of clothing, many pairs of shoes and accessories, and a lit vanity where Nicky likely did her makeup daily.

“Pick anything-.” Nicky smirked.

“-Let’s go out in style.”

After thirty minutes, they were both ready.

Jaida’s braids were thrown over one shoulder, and she was sporting a knee-length red dress with a built-in corset and zip all the way down the centre. Nicky gave her a pair of red stilettos that barely fit, and a red beret to match. The older woman already had her face painted for work that day, but Nicky rubbed away the natural lip she originally had on and replaced it with a red lip to match the rest of her outfit.

“You look _godly,”_ Nicky beamed, and Jaida was almost turned on by her own reflection.

Jaida finally got a chance to look at Nicky up close. Her skin was tanned and olivey, dusted with soft freckles and a few moles, the hint of brown at her roots from her natural hair colour, her button nose, her pillowy crimson lips. The older woman wanted to drink her up.

“Thank you. So do you,” Jaida replied, feeling warm all over as Nicky strutted around in her sheer leopard-print catsuit.

“Let’s go watch a movie and I can paint your nails!” Nicky exclaimed, and Jaida found her heart swelling with affection.

Growing up, she never had slumber parties with other girls where they’d paint each other’s nails. In middle school, her group of friends would tease her for wearing bonnets and other things to protect her hair at sleepovers, to the point that she stopped attending them. By the time she met Heidi halfway through highschool, painting one another’s nails at sleepovers was ‘too babyish’ of an activity. But here she was, on her final day, getting her fingernails painted by the most beautiful woman she had ever seen in one of the most lavish homes she had ever walked into.

“What colour do you want?” 

“Black, please.”

“Okay emo,” Nicky giggled and Jaida kicked her knee gently, Clueless playing in the background. 

“I wish I was Dionne,” Jaida admired the character on screen and her many outfits that sculpted the late nineties and early noughties.

“Isn’t the actress a republican?” the French woman snorted.

“All republicans die at midnight. It’ll be fine.”

Once their nails had dried, they lay down together and watched more nostalgic films that allowed them to reminisce on their childhoods and how far they’d come. At some point, Nicky had rested her head on Jaida’s shoulder. They fit together like a puzzle piece - _just right._

By sunset, they had put their grief aside. They had gone through many bottles of every kind of alcohol imaginable and decided to just sit down and reminisce on the lives they had lived with one another.

“So. What brought you to America? It’s an absolute shithole here. I’m sure Paris is much nicer…” Jaida slurred, chewing on some mozzarella sticks that Nicky had cooked for the two of them after finding them at the bottom of her freezer.

“Mehhh, it isn’t _much_ better-.” the blonde shrugged.

“-And, uh. Love and the arts brought me here.”

“Love?”

“I dated my fair share of women and men. I grew up in Morocco and dated like twelve guys before I turned eighteen! Then I moved to Paris and dated five more guys and four girls, but after so many relationships that ended badly, I realised there was no way my soulmate was in Europe or Africa,” she explained, drunkenly rambling.

“You believe in soulmates, girl?”

“Mhm-.” she continued. 

“-So, I spent a year studying fashion in London, and I _hated_ it. The UK was so ugly and everyone had gross teeth. However, living in London spawned an obsession for musical theatre, so I moved to the theatre capital of the world - New York! But I’ve been editing for a fashion magazine this entire time and taking auditions on my days off. And, of course, searching for my soulmate.”

“Damn.” Jaida pursed her lips and edged closer to Nicky.

“-Did you ever find them? You know… your soulmate.”

The blonde frowned slightly, “I don’t think so, no.”

It was at that point that Jaida realised she wanted to kiss her. She realised that this girl was the most interesting, stunning person she had ever come across and she was only able to spend _one_ day with her. 

But, the truth was, if she got to go out looking at Nicky’s perfect face, her thirty-three years of ups and downs, highs and lows, would’ve been completely worth it.

Nicky turned to Jaida and smiled once more, “And what about you-”

She wasn’t able to finish her sentence, because Jaida had lunged forward and placed her glossy red lips onto Nicky’s soft matte ones, enveloping the both of them in a bruising kiss that lit all her senses on fire. She had kissed many people, but no one’s lips electrified her like Nicky’s.

Before leaning in, she realised she had nothing left to lose. She had only two hours left to live her life, so there was no reason not to make bold decisions. She hardly suspected the French woman to kiss back, but she did almost instantly, raising her hands to Jaida’s jaw and pulling her closer.

Nicky’s mind was blank as she focused on Jaida’s taste, on Jaida’s hands that gripped her face just enough to manoeuvre her on top of her so they sat in a straddling position, on Jaida’s body. Her hands slid from being at the older woman’s jaw to holding on to her wrists instead. Both of them pushed against each other as their mouths glided, the sound of their breathing and the ambient jazz music from Nicky’s Spotify playlist filling the room. 

Jaida’s thoughts were a mantra, racing with the word _Nicky, Nicky, Nicky._ Her own fingers trailed up Nicky’s stomach, stopping right beneath her breasts. She palmed at them through her catsuit.

Pulling away from the kiss, the blonde’s bedroom eyes told Jaida everything she needed to know. Nicky wrapped her legs around the older woman’s waist and was carried into bed, where they spent their last few hours exploring one another’s bodies with many toys and positions.

And then it was 11:59 pm, and they both lay naked in Nicky’s bed, staring out the large balcony window, getting their final glances at the world in front.

“If there’s another life after this one, I hope we meet again, Jaida,” said the blonde, her digits tracing Jaida’s slender collarbones.

“We will,” Jaida assured, and then everything stopped.

_And here it is, our final night alive  
And as the earth runs to the ground  
Oh girl it's you that I lie with  
As the atom bomb locks in  
Oh it's you I watch TV with  
As the world, as the world caves in_

**Author's Note:**

> i know the song implies the world ends with nuclear war, but i wanted to make it a little more lighthearted


End file.
